


Humility

by TK_DuVeraun



Category: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Classism, Depressive Thoughts, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Horrors of the Blight, Rating-Consistent Violence, The Peerage are Jerks, Wardens gonna Warden, past Warden/Alistair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-07-29 04:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16256870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TK_DuVeraun/pseuds/TK_DuVeraun
Summary: Equals in standing and tragedy, Nathaniel and Elissa struggle to salvage what life a Warden is allowed to have. It would be easier without the sniping and guilt, but they can't help themselves. If only they could help each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For my dear Ocean. Please tell me where it hurts.

“He refuses to give us his name. Or say anything, my lady.”

Elissa narrows her eyes at the prisoner because she recognizes him. The hair, the nose, the set in the eyes: it’s Nathaniel Howe. Of course it is. She waves off her soldier. “My title is Warden Commander.”

“Yes, my- Erm, Commander.” He shifts, uncomfortable, and it’s enough to make his armor scratch against itself. Poorly fitted. Elissa will need to have Woolsey see to it later. That and so many other things.

“Leave me. I will deal with the prisoner myself.”

Her man bows and mumbles, probably to hide the fact that he’s used the wrong title again, but Elissa can’t be bothered to scold him again. When she’s alone with Nathaniel, she steps away from the bars. “Alright, let yourself out.”

He narrows his eyes right back at her. They’re as dark as they had been in childhood, never lightening in color or severity. “I am securely locked in my cell,  _ my lady _ .”

“And the lackwits running this place before I got here left you with your boots. Now pick the lock so I can break your nose,” Elissa hissed.

“Like you broke my father’s skull?” Nathaniel sneered back.

“Like he destroyed my entire estate and slaughtered my family. My parents? My sister-in-law? My  _ niece _ ? She was a child and no danger to your  _ father _ and his plans.” Elissa balls her hands into fists, thumb out, just as Zevran had taught her. 

Nathaniel springs up from his seat on the bed and grabs his cell bars. “And so you’ll destroy my family as revenge? Kill my father and sister, steal my lands and now take my life?”

“ _ Queen _ Anora,” Elissa sneers the title as much as she can, but without Nathaniel’s nose, it’s hardly as vicious, “stole your lands and thrust them on the Wardens, which landed them in my lap. I’d’ve as soon as never set foot in Amaranthine again. I’m not going to kill you for your father’s sins, but I  _ am _ going to break your, frankly, gratuitous nose for breaking into the Wardens’ castle and killing my people.”

“You truly expect me to believe  _ you,  _ golden daughter Teryna Cousland can humbly set her pride aside long enough to- You bitch!” Nathaniel interrupts his rant with a cry when Elissa punches the fingers he has clenched around the bars. 

“Your father took my family. The Wardens took my life and my titles. The Blight took my belovèd and the flaming  _ Queen _ took my country in honor of her shit-eating father.  _ You _ decided to throw your own burning freedom in the mud by breaking the law. I have no choice, but to let you hang for your crimes  _ Nate _ and it has everything to do with the pride that was  _ stolen _ from me, so don’t start with I’m not humble. I was forced into humility on my knees. You threw yourself there.”

Elissa is panting after the words, but doesn’t have enough in her to care to want them back. She rubs the tears from her eyes. “I hate you,” she finishes.

“And I you,” Nathaniel shoots back. His posture is as sharp as his nose and aside from cradling his bruised hand, he’s unaffected by her.

“Make your choice: the noose or the chalice. It’s more than I was given, wretch.”

\---

Elissa stops Seneschal Varel with a firm hand on his shoulder. 

“Commander?” He asks. His head and mouth are full of other words, but the middle of the Joining Ceremony isn’t the place for them. He’d protested giving Nathaniel the opportunity to Join, but when he’s in the middle of handing over the chalice it’s too late to back down. 

Elissa sees all of the words in a glance and then turns to Nathaniel. “His sentence is mine to carry out.”

The word ‘protocol’ hangs in the musty air of the great hall, but Varel doesn’t dare protest aloud. Hands unfamiliar with trembling pass the smoking to chalice to Elissa. The smell of darkspawn blood mixed with lyrium takes her back to Ostagar, back to  _ Alistair _ and the moment what little she had left was stripped from her. Back to fighting the arch demon, when Alistair threw her aside, the only time he’d ever taken a hand to her.

She exhales and opens her eyes, staring at Nathaniel through the acrid smoke. “From this moment, you are a Grey Warden.”

Pride won’t let him give her anything but the briefest nod before he takes the chalice. He maintains eye contact as he drinks.

Elissa lets Varel catch the chalice as Nathaniel falls to the ground and writhes. Her expression doesn’t shift at seeing the whites of his eyes, nor with the sharp, jerky spasms of his entire body as the darkspawn blood ravages him the same way it did her. The mixture strips his humanity, but it’s still not the violation of the Grey Warden Order. In taking the chalice, Nathaniel relinquished his titles, his claim, his  _ family _ , as dead as Elissa’s.

The silent vigil is broken when Varel kneels beside him. “The Howe is stronger than I expected. He will survive.”

“He is no Howe,” Elissa says. She lets her words fall onto his unconscious body and then turns her back on him. She does not check on him, as she did Anders and Oghren. Doesn’t even look over her shoulder when Varel asks what should be done with him.

Nothing stops Elissa on her way to her office, though Mistress Woolsey tries. She sits behind her oak desk and kicks the bottom repeatedly, though it doesn’t even groan for her trouble. She howls at her own, closed door and scrubs her face with both hands. In front of her is a huge piece of vellum. It spans the entire desk and hangs off three sides. On it, in several hands, ranging from blocky to spidery, are the family trees of the Ferelden peerage. 

Howe and Cousland are not next to each other, but close enough that Elissa can touch her name and Nathaniel’s without moving the sheet. In her own hand, the ink still drying, is the date of her death, written as the day she was Joined. She does the same for Nathaniel, though she wants to overturn the inkpot and smear it over the entire tree.

Truly, she wants to throw the whole sheet in the fireplace behind her.

What good had it done her? Alistair? Any of them? Dead, all, with a self-important peasant on the throne.

Though ink stains her fingers, Elissa puts her face in her hands and cries.

\---

“Of all of the people for Ferelden’s  _ Queen _ to give your home to, the country is at least best-served it was the Wardens.” Elissa says as she swipes at the darkspawn blood on her armor. They’re alone in the inner courtyard, standing under the light, sea-scented drizzle. She turns her face to the sky and lets the water fall down like so many tears.

“The weren’t any darkspawn in the cellars, last I was here,” Nathaniel says.

“I wasn’t blaming you or your self-important-”

“My father is dead, show some-”

“-nose.” Elissa opens her eyes and looks back at him. “You slander him more than I do.”

Nathaniel sniffs, loud and impressive enough to be heard over the rain. “I’m not discussing him with you.” Before Elissa can remind him that  _ he _ brought the ghost back to the keep, Nathaniel says, “Was Alistair really Maric’s bastard? Why not put him on the throne? You always wanted to be queen.”

Elissa jabs her finger into his chest. “I was eight when-”

He grabs her arm and pulls her in until their armor cracks together. “Not two years ago, your father cancelled our betrothal to slip you in Cailan’s bed.”

With a jerk, Elissa rips her arm away and snaps her wrist to rid herself of water, blood and the feel of him trying to restrain her. “And it got him killed. Don’t-”

“No,  _ you _ don’t flatter yourself. You never had a chance. My father wouldn’t have acted out of fear of ‘Queen Elissa.’“

Elissa tries to backhand him, but her fingers barely graze him after his dodge. Her breath rattles with angry shudders in her chest. “Alistair did not want to be king. And even if he had, Wardens are incapable of having children. I’d not do that to my country.”

The biting response dies in Nathaniel’s mouth and he stands there, mouth open and water dripping down his face. His jaw works open and closed several times before he can spit words at her. “You  _ wench.  _ You sterilized me? Killing my family wasn’t enough, you had to end my family in the cruelest-”

“You had a death sentence! I don’t think you understand what  _ execution _ means, if you think you could have continued your line from the rope!” Elissa shouts, but the words aren’t enough. They can’t be. She swings her fist at him. She could draw a dagger and kill him. A few quick cuts that Zevran spent hours teaching her during long nights in the Deep Roads. Nathaniel is fast, trained, but she’s the fucking Hero of Ferelden. She can kill him.

But she won’t.

She’s killed enough people.

Nathaniel returns her punch, only for Elissa to grab his wrist and then they’re grappling in the drizzle, smearing black blood and mud into permanent stains on their armor. Instead of words, they just howl at each other like the wounded animals they are. Elissa is smaller, but she’s been training with Warden stamina and endurance in the field since her family’s murder while Nathaniel was going to tourneys in the Free Marches.

Eventually, his footing gives out on the stone slicked with mud and Nathaniel is on his back in the mud. Elissa follows him down, striking him in the shoulders, the chest. She’ll need his arms later, when they fight more darkspawn, but he can suffer. He can hurt like she hurts.

When he finally throws her off, Elissa knows she’ll be sporting a black eye and worse beneath her armor. She sits in the mud next to him as the rain continues to fall, failing to wash the grime away. She stares at her blackened gloves. “I had everything stolen from me.” 

Elissa hates him. She doesn’t want to cry, but she didn’t cry for the entire Blight and now the tears refuse to be held back. She sobs. “You threw what you had away.”

Rain is the only sound. Nathaniel says, “I’m still left with nothing.”

There are tracks on his face, but they aren’t from the sky.

\---

 

The lord’s study in the Vigil is a warm collection of books and red draperies. Mistress Woolsey hung a Grey Wardens banner behind the desk, but Elissa takes care to keep it at her back. She prefers the soft chaise in front of the fire, anyway. She has a proper commander’s office on the other side of the keep for receiving people; she doesn’t know who Woolsey is trying to impress.

The crash from the door being thrown open isn’t enough to make Elissa look up from her book. She’s not done with the page she’s on, but she turns to the next one, regardless.

“Do you not trust me?” Nathaniel asks. The question loses what marginal impact it had when his voice stumbles in the middle of it.

Elissa glances at him through her eyelashes and can see he’s staring at the banner.  _ Ah. So it is to send a message, not to impress _ .

“What is  _ this _ ?” Nathaniel gestures with both arms.

In response, Elissa turns her eyes back on the page. “It’s the same device on your tabbard. I should think it obvious.” She turns another page. It will be a nightmare to find her place later, but the gesture is worth it. “Why do you believe I don’t trust you?”

Nathaniel stalks across the room and looms between Elissa and the fireplace. “I didn’t say that.”

“I realize feeling clever is more important than answers, but I had erroneously assumed being squired would teach you proper respect for your commander.” She still doesn’t look up at him.

“You leave me here in the keep. I am a capable fighter. I pledged myself to the Wardens. I have honor.” He puts his hand on the book before she can turn another page. “I realize acting aloof is more important than professionalism, but I had erroneously assumed the Blight had taught you how to lead.”

Elissa shuts it on his fingers and looks up at Nathaniel. “I know it’s difficult to see past the end of your nose, but the arling isn’t  _ fond _ of the Wardens and try to charge me more for services the Vigil has received at the same rates for generations.”

Nathaniel’s mouth twists and his eyebrows scrunch together as he tries to find an insult in her words and fails. He pulls his hand away and rubs his knuckles. He turns his head so that he’s not looking directly at her. “The arling was ravaged by the Blight. The farmers can barely feed themselves. Add in the bandits attacking the farms, we should all count ourselves lucky to survive the winter.”

“And  _ that _ , Nathaniel, is why you remain at the Keep while I travel. Even if you chose to witter away eight years of your life in the Free Marches, you should have been Arl of Amaranthine. The people will speak to you.” Elissa brushes past him and drops her book on the commander’s desk. She pauses at the door when he speaks.

“So give it to me.”

She tilts her chin down. “Should I leave my post, by death or abandonment, Weisshaupt will send someone else to lead, not promote from within. My family was murdered to keep Orlesians out of power in Ferelden.”

“Say what you mean. By my father.”

“The only one who wants to speak of him is  _ you _ ,” Elissa snaps back. She rubs the old break on her nose. “The Howes are dead. You can restore what remains of their legacy, or you can run around the wilderness chasing rumors of darkspawn.”

“I yet live.”

“No, we don’t.”

 

\---

 

“This is not what I meant when I asked that you trust me with real missions,” Nathaniel complains, though his words are half-drowned by the rain. They’re both under oilskins, but between the relentless rain and the water and mud churned up by their mares’ hooves, the ride is miserable.

“I thought it best that this task did not wait,” Elissa replies. “But you’re welcome to return to the Vigil and train with Oghren, if you would rather.”

Nathaniel gags and spits into the road. “Bite your tongue.”

Elissa laughs and it feels like the first time since the battle of Denerim. The memory hurts as much as laughing and she pulls her cloak more tightly around her armor.

They’re nearly the gates of Amaranthine when Nathaniel decides they’re not miserable enough and opens his mouth. “I spoke with Oghren. Asked if he was there when you- when my father died. He would not answer me.”

With a sigh, Elissa guides her mare off the road and under a copse of trees where she waits for Nathaniel to join her. When he does, she pushes back her hood and stares him in the eye. “Why would you ask that?”

After an aborted motion, Nathaniel pulls his hood back, as well. His face isn’t twisted in anger, for once. “He was my father. I just wanted to know how- know if he died quickly.”

The memories are sharp behind Elissa’s eyes and she can still feel her dagger crunching against bone. She feels sick, but she keeps her gaze on Nathaniel’s. She can’t raise her voice, so she hopes it carries over the sound of the rain against the leaves. “He did.”

Nathaniel’s entire body shudders with his sharp intake of breath and he has to look away from her. “I want the truth, not platitudes.”

“He took enough from me. I wouldn’t let him have my soul, too.” Elissa watches him, sees the way he flinches at the words, still can’t bear to look at her. It’s not until he pulls up his hood that she fixes her own and then they’re riding again.

They don’t speak. Elissa simply flashes her griffon breastplate to gate guard to keep from talking. If she hadn’t known Nathaniel was upset beyond his stoic nature, the fact that he didn’t pester for their intended location so he could take them the short path would have. She could hardly take a step without him muttering there was a quicker route through the keep.

There is a good reason Elissa doesn’t tell him why they’re in Amaranthine. It’s a chance, a slim hope the letters in her armor would give him and their dynamic is too precarious to risk on hope. The shop from the letter is nice - certainly faring better than most businesses after the Blight. She lowers her hood as she enters and pulls her cloak open enough to display her Warden armor. 

“Welcome. You wouldn’t happen to be Comma-” The woman’s voice catches with a loud cry and she rushes across the shop to grab Nathaniel. “Nathaniel! I had feared the worst.”

Elissa steps away, lowering her gaze to give them some facsimile of privacy.

“Delilah! Is it really you? I was sure you had died.”

“You’re back! We have so much to talk about.” Delilah pulls away, one hand on her abdomen and steps toward the back of the shop. “Come in the house. I’ll get you a drink.”

Nathaniel’s eyes are wide and wet with unshed tears as he stares at his sister. His  _ alive _ sister. Elissa touches his shoulder and nods, a silent ‘I’ll see you again at the Vigil.’

But he doesn’t leave it at that. Nathaniel squeezes her wrist and gives her a quiet “Thank you” before she can leave.

\---

For the first time, Nathaniel knocks before entering the commander’s study. “Elissa? I would like to… speak with you.”

She nods him in and sets her book down, careful to place her silk bookmark flat between the brittle pages. She sets it on the small table next to her chaise and pours him a tumbler of brandy to match her own. Her feet are propped aimed at the fireplace, still pruned from the rainy ride into the city.

With slow steps, Nathaniel enters his father’s old study and examines the furniture and layout. The first time, he’d been too angry, too focused on the banner and his rage to look. His hand lingers on an old bookshelf. “These don’t look like my- like the books that were here before.”

“Varel brought most of them.” Elissa closes her eyes for a moment to hold back her emotions and keep her voice even. “Teryn Cousland sent a few he believed I would want.”

“Fergus is still your brother,” Nathaniel says, though he means  _ Delilah is still my sister. _

Elissa ignores it. “I can write to the  _ Queen _ on your behalf, if you would like people to check the arl of Denerim’s estate.”

Nathaniel’s hand curls into a fist and he pushes off from the shelves. He takes the armchair on the other side of Elissa’s table and kicks off his slippers. The crackling of the fire as it warms their feet is the only sound while he’s too cross to do more than stare at the brandy. He says, “I spoke with Delilah. She’s due by the spring.”

“Congratulations,” Elissa says. It’s dragging knives through her throat to keep the envy and bitterness out of her voice, but she manages it. Manages to not sound more bitter than she has since the Blight began, at least. She swirls the brandy in her glass and takes a sip.

“She said…” Nathaniel sounds the way she feels, like the words are being dragged kicking and screaming out of a burning estate to be recruited. “Father was mad. Why didn’t you tell me?”

The brandy doesn’t burn on the way down - hasn’t since the Joining. Elissa stares at her empty tumbler before answering. “You wouldn’t have believed it. I didn’t.” She sets the glass on the table between them, fingers tracing the rim.

“How could you not? From what she said…” Nathaniel’s words are like gravel spat from his soul at hers.

Both hands cover her eyes, but nothing can keep the memories from Elissa’s sight. “That day was a nightmare ripped from the very fabric of the Void. All the players were demons wearing the skin of people, Nathaniel. If Duncan hadn’t died at Ostagar, I might have killed him myself. Stop asking. Just let me forget.” Tears slip down her cheeks, but she can’t move her hands, even if they do nothing to block the horror.

“I…” But Nathaniel doesn’t have words. There are two men in his mind that wear the badge of ‘father’ and he wanted her to get rid of one, to make it go away, to make it simple, but she can’t. And he can’t. Breath shuddering in his chest, he reaches across the grab and holds her arm. Just a touch. A shared anchor in the horror of their memories. “I will try.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We yet live.

Three months after her arrival, Vigil is no more a home than the muddy tents Elissa used during the Blight. The halls are familiar, not dear, but they had been in her childhood, too, so it is no trial passed. Amaranthine is a critical port; her father had benefited from good relations with the Howes. Until he died of them.

Elissa sets her quill down and rubs her eyes. The Grey Warden regalia helps her forget where she is at times, as do the letters from Weisshaupt, but the commander’s desk is covered with missives from the arling. It isn’t her place to govern the people and solve their problems. There are darkspawn with the ability to  _ speak _ and she’s expected to waste her time with bandits? She makes copies of the letters so she has something to kindle her fires with. She’s penning instructions for the Seneschal when the door opens. 

“I’m working, Nathaniel.”

“As am I,” he replies. “The cooks said you haven’t eaten all day.”

“A warden won’t starve after a day,” Elissa says. She had been done with her letter, but she has no intention of leaving her office.

“Do not reduce me to nursemaid, Elissa,” Nathaniel says. He caps her ink pot and looms over the desk. Like her, he wears the Warden armor like a rebellion. It’s not the strongest in the keep or even the best-fitted. It’s a badge of shame they wear with pride not to sully the tatters of their names.

“The recruits grate on me.” Elissa does not cross her arms, but she does pout.

“You chose them.” He walks to the side of the desk and offers his hand. “Come, Commander.” From him, the title isn’t professionalism; it’s respect and other things Elissa can’t think about.

She raises to her feet without his help and gestures for him to lead the way. “If I stab Anders, on your head it lay.”

Nathaniel turns his hand palm up as they walk. “I will say I understand why the Templars were so keen to have him locked up.”

“You’d think he’d be more keen to stay out of it,” Elissa gripes.

“Perhaps he thinks he is safe in that you cannot reverse the Joining.” Nathaniel’s voice loses its dry tone halfway through the sentence, but the damage is done. The words clatter to the stone floor and scatter ahead of them. 

Elissa’s chin drops, not much, just enough to show him their thoughts are the same. “You’ve done your share of fraternization with the others.”

Nathaniel stops, but doesn’t look at her. “I’m certain I don’t know what you mean.”

“‘As long as it’s such a pretty brush,’” Elissa quotes, raising her eyebrows.

“The Couslands are famous for their equality; are you saying you disagree?”

Elissa grabs his arm between armor plates and squeezes. “There are no politics in the Grey Wardens.”

He meets her eyes. “Then I will call a spade a spade.”

“I told you, there is no future in it.”

“By your words, there’s no future in any of us. I’ll take my pleasures where I might and you’ll be grateful I’m not another Sigrun.” Nathaniel pulls his arm from her. “Velanna hates humans as much as Tevinter disdains elves. If I must tweak her ear like a juvenile to get through the days, I will.”

They stare at each other, frozen in the hallway. He challenges her to say it’s no so dire, not so tired, not so hopeless, but she can’t. Not when her heart lies in Denerim with the arch demon’s ashes. “You’re encouraging Anders, with it.”

“He is worse without it. Remember the statue.”

Elissa covers her eyes with a hand. “Maker, don’t mention the statue.”

Nathaniel’s laugh follows them into the dining hall.

\---

Sharp, sea wind whips Elissa’s short hair. Repairs on Vigil’s Keep are expensive and time-consuming, but they create work for Amaranthine’s people. The work is done be professionals - some of whom are working down the battlements from her. Darkspawn don’t have a history of sieging, but darkspawn that can independently speak and reason? They terrify Elissa more than the broodmother. 

The monster had been a grotesque amalgamation of horrors given a single form, but the implications of its existence were more frightening. They were a countless horde in the Deep Roads; with the ability to give and take orders and have lieutenants they wouldn’t need a Blight to pose a threat. It is cruel irony that the only surviving Warden who fought the Fifth Blight is charged to battle the ancient evil a second time. She sighs and presses herself against the cold stone of the embrasure. An illusory army of darkspawn sits in her mind and across the empty, fallow fields surrounding the keep.

“Have a lot on your mind?” Nathaniel asks. He’s wearing a heavy, blue Warden cloak and has a second in his arms. He holds it out to her. “A guardsman was bringing it to you, but there is something we must discuss.”

The cape flourishes as Elissa throws it over her shoulders. She ties it over her pauldrons for expediency's sake. She delivers a sharp nod before settling against the stone.

“I read Oghren’s report of the mission in the Blackmarsh.”

“I’m impressed. I didn’t find it legible, personally. But why would you read it? You were there.” She rubs her wind-scratched cheek against the soft hood.

Nathaniel rubs the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “Even if you could read it, he left out a pertinent events. The recruits took it on themselves to adopt a demon.”

She freezes, her neck crooked and face pressed against the fabric. “Pardon?”

“The report says we retrieved Warden Kristoff. The only thing we recovered was his body. His dead body. And not as you and I or Sigrun is dead. Properly dead.” He presses his fingers even tighter, trying to squeeze away a headache.

“I will write to his widow, then,” Elissa says, nonplussed. “What about the demon? Is Anders an abomination now?”

“The demon didn’t possess Anders. It possessed Kristoff’s body.”

Elissa’s mouth opens and shuts a few times. She holds a single finger, but changes her mind and presses it to her lips. Finally, she pulls back her sleeves and presses the inside of her wrist against Nathaniel’s forehead.

He swats her hand away. “I’m not delirious.”

“The diseases from the marsh and well-documented-”

“We went into the Fade.”

The cold sea air bites Elissa’s nose when she inhales sharply. “I think we’d best have this conversation inside with some hot, spiced wine.”

Despite his nod, Nathaniel sketches out what happened on the mission. The only truth she’d been told was that a talking darkspawn had been responsible for Kristoff’s capture. The freeing of souls in the Fade is new and unsettling information. They collect the warm wine from the kitchens and settle on the chaise in the commander’s study.

“If I’m to be honest, I wouldn’t have believed this from anyone else,” Elissa says. She is on her second glass of wine.

“He said you entered the Fade during the Blight.”

“Nothing that happened during the Blight seems real.” She pauses and watches Nathaniel refill his glass. “Tell me if I have the right of this. A demon fought with you in the Fade and then the mechanism that returned you to the waking world spat it out as well. It came to inhabit Kristoff’s body and now Anders and the others are hiding it in the cellar?”

“Correct.”

Elissa groans into both hands and slowly pulls them down her face. “But why?”

“To slow decomposition, he said,” Nathaniel says before finishing his third glass.

“I meant why bring it back at all. Sweet Andraste, why didn’t you stop this madness?”

“They won’t listen to you. You can’t expect they would listen to me.”

“I don’t have the constitution for this, Nathaniel.”

He pats her shoulder. “I put several arrows in its heart, but they had no effect on the demon. It may well haunt Kristoff’s bones when it comes to that point.”

“I’ll write to Weisshaupt.” Elissa finishes her glass and moves to stand, but Nathaniel catches her arm and pours her another.

“Tomorrow. Your letters become almost exclusively expletives when you’re like this.”

“It’s warranted, this time.”

\---

“A tent? My, my, Commander, if you wanted to get me alone, we could have done it back at the castle,” Ander says with waggling eyebrows and a few thrusts of his hips.

Velanna trips him with her staff and Elissa chooses not to chide her for it.

“What?” Anders whines. “It’s not as if she’s keeping the rain off.”

“Actually, some of the caverns in the Deep Roads are large enough to have their own weather patterns,” Sigrun chirps. 

“I don’t believe you,” Velanna says with her nose in the air.

“Hey, Oghren’s the one that lied to you. And he wouldn’t know about these caverns. They’re only  _ really _ deep and the Warrior Caste would never see ‘em.” She laughs. “Until now, anyway.”

“It’s not for the weather.” Oghren interrupts himself with a belch. “Lissy here is afraid of the ceiling.” He pats Elissa so hard on the back that she would have stumbled if she hadn’t expected it.

Sigrun laughs, looks at Elissa and then laughs harder when she realizes that Oghren is telling the truth. “Wait, wait, you’re afraid of ceilings, so you put a second, flimsier ceiling between you and the stone? That’s adorable.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the rocks,” Anders coos. He barely dodges Elissa’s dagger, earning a slice in his robes for his trouble. “Hey, that was uncalled for.”

“You have a lot of bravado for someone who nearly wet himself when we entered,” Nathaniel says. He positions himself between Elissa and the others.

She lets their shoulders brush in a silent show of thanks, but otherwise doesn’t comment on it. “Anders, you’re on thin ice. I won’t send you to the Chantry, but there is always a place for more wardens in Orlais. I hear the Western Approach does wonders for your tan.”

“Say, Commander, will you be needing a shoulder rub tonight? I hear the Deep Roads make people tense. Not that you’re anything but the epitome of professionalism. Isn’t that right, Ser Pounce-a-lot?”

Elissa glances at Nathaniel, then shares a slight grin and raised eyebrows with him. She’s mercifully left alone for the rest of the day’s travel. The rock overhead doesn’t loom nearly as much as the scratching feeling of darkspawn against her soul from every direction. It feels like the Battle of Denerim all over again, except without the fear. Only the grief.

She sits next to the fire and tries not to cry because every glimpse of Grey Warden armor out of the corner of her eye tells her it’s Alistair, nevermind that all of her people have worn it exclusively since their recruitment. Stray sparks come dangerously close to her face, with how it’s resting on her knees, but Elissa doesn’t care.

“Thank you for cooking, Velanna,” she shoves the words past her memories when Velanna hands her a warm bowl of lentils. “None of us really could before I recruited Wynne. Alistair just made the same, grey slop every meal.”

She sniffs in response and continues to serve the others. “At least you have the grace not to complain.”

“I could complain, if you want,” Sigrun says, mouth full of lentils. “Or Anders! He’s great at complaining.”

\---

Blood drips from a jagged slice on Elissa’s forehead. She pants through gritted teeth and holds both daggers up in defiance. They glow with absorbed magic, casting shadows on the talking darkspawn. “I won’t allow it, Emissary.”

The darkspawn throws another fireball at Elissa, knowing she won’t dodge and leave Nathaniel’s unconscious body to take the blast. It cackles when her daggers splinter. “I am the Lost as no petty enchantments will stop the Mother’s plans! The Warden is mine!”

She throws the broken blade at the thing’s neck and rushes it down with her good dagger. “His life belongs to me! I killed him!” 

Her blade pierces the corrupted flesh and explodes in stored power. The rebounded power makes her arm numb to the elbow, but the darkspawn’s head is splattered against Kal’Hirol’s ruins, so Elissa pays it no mind. Her dagger falls out of limp fingers and she’s hyperventilating from adrenaline. Still watching the others fight off the golem, Elissa walks backwards to Nathaniel. She loses her footing in the gore, but doesn’t slip. She’s blindly patting him down for injuries when the golem crumbles.

White mage light envelopes him before Anders makes it over. “You alright, Commander? Don’t worry, I’m amazing; no one else is in a permanent way.”

Elissa keeps her hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder when she finally turns to him. She squeezes before saying, “What’s the damage?”

“Well, my robes are a-”

“Anders.”

“A few burns. Mostly we lost weapons.” Anders gestures to Nathaniel. “Didn’t even crack his skull when he fell. Guess the hard head isn’t all metaphorical. He’ll wake up in a minute.” 

Magic tingles and burns Elissa’s face. She flinches and leans away from Anders. “I’m fine.”

“Too late, I’m already done.” Anders laughs and returns to help the others. He’s as ridiculously animated as ever, so Elissa lets her thoughts travel elsewhere. To another battle, another Warden that relied on her and paid for it with his life. The memory roils in her mouth and it’s all she can do not to scream.

Her jaw quivers around harsh breaths while she waits for Nathaniel to wake. When he does, she presses down on his shoulder, preventing him from sitting up. “Let it settle, first.”

“What’s wrong with your arm?”

She doesn’t move. “I’m not going to inspect it and let you up. The threat is gone.” That isn’t true. She can still feel darkspawn near, but perhaps not  _ too _ near.

“The other arm.” A pause. “Commander.”

“Magical backslash.” Elissa gets to her feet and offers Nathaniel her good arm. His frown and the way he narrows his eyes tells her he knows she’s deflecting and hasn’t missed that she’s still panting.

But he says nothing and lets her slip under his arm to help him back to camp. 

They clean up the black blood and ichor as much as they can without a proper washing facility. Elissa’s hands shake and she feels faint. She hides it next to her tent with her back to the others. Without consulting her brain, her elbow flies back to ward off her attacker, but it isn’t an attacker, it’s just Nathaniel’s taint scratching in her mind. He’s lucky to catch her arm.

“You’re not well,” he murmurs, masking his concern.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not well.”

Elissa rounds on him. “I killed you! I killed everyone! Do not stand there and ask after my health.”

Nathaniel pulls her into the privacy of her tent, though the canvas does little to muffle their words. “That’s enough! Doomed is not dead. We survi-”

“We didn’t. I killed us.” She beats her fists against his armor, but her strength is gone, drained out through the tears on her face. “I made the choice. I killed us. I killed him.”

A sob breaks out of her lungs and Elissa is clinging to Nathaniel’s armor howling her grief. Her words are a deafening echo that drown out whatever he’s saying. She’s a bowl scraped clean and refilled by an endless fountain of grief. There’s nothing in her to resist him stripping off her armor or laying her on the commander’s bedroll. She doesn’t even notice he’s gone until he’s back and laid next to her, holding her face against his rough, warm gambeson. 

“We yet live, Elissa. I swear it.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some of the lyrics from _Oh Grey Warden_ \- one of the songs in Inquisition. It's anachronistic, in part, but can also be thought of as referring to the events at Soldier's Peak, so just go with it.

Winter falls heavily over the arling, but does nothing to assuage Elissa’s worry. Even without her broodmothers, this Mother could bring an army against the city and the Vigil. She wouldn’t care about frostbite, as Elissa has to. At least the renovations are complete. The foreman had warned repeatedly that work could not be done in the snow, so the Commander of the Grey had taken a loan from Teryn Cousland to hire more hands.

The inner courtyard is reserved for inducted Wardens and their personal staff, but it still has enough traffic that the snow is trampled, melted or showed into tight alcoves. Nathaniel is late. He was meant to meet her for melee combat training, but instead Elissa stands alone in her cloak, breath fogging in the air. She feels the faint trace of the Taint before she hears his footsteps. “You’re late,” she tells the empty courtyard.

“Don’t turn around. I have something for you,” Nathaniel says.

Elissa can hear him rustling with cloth behind her and she can smell wax and resin. She doesn’t turn. “I fought in a war, Nathaniel. I don’t like surprises.”

“Yes, but if I had told anyone ahead of time,” he lowers his voice to a whisper, “they would have figured out what today is.” He steps close and stops whispering. “Arms up. Close your eyes.”

“Well someone had best tell me before I sign my letters wrong.” Elissa does as she’s told and feels him walk in front of her and open her left hand. “If this is Wade’s dagger, I’m going to stab you with it.”

He presses something in her hand and closes her fingers around it. She knows what it is without opening her eyes. The bow’s string brushes her arm. Nathaniel whispers before pulling away. “Happy birthday, Commander.”

“It- What?” Elissa opens her eyes and lowers the bow. “Is it really my-”

Nathaniel covers her mouth with his hand. “Do you _want_ the entire keep to know?”

“No.” She pulls it up and examines the carving. Shallow wings inlaid with blue resin to keep the wood from losing integrity. She tests the weight of the pull. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

“It’s the only bow heavy-enough for you in the arling,” Nathaniel says. He hands her a quiver and an archer’s glove before picking up his own bow. It’s good enough for her, but even if he’d been willing to part with it, she could never have accepted an ancestral Howe weapon.

“You still need to practice your melee combat. You’re useless when a darkspawn gets close,” Elissa says. With an even breath and a movement her arms hadn’t forgotten, she looses an arrow at the center target. It sticks out with proud fletching.

Nathaniel seats his own next to it. “Nothing gets that close.”

Elissa laughs and they continue firing. Her grouping is terrible, but nineteen of the twenty are solidly stuck in the target. She pulls her regular glove over the archer’s and rubs feeling back into her cold fingers. “What brought this on? Aside from… the date.”

Nathaniel pointedly doesn’t meet her eyes as he starts pulling their arrows out of the target. “I was packing away the trophy room and I found the mangy rabbit pelt.”

Elissa gasps, chokes on a laugh and then elbows him. “It was not mangy. You’re just cross because you couldn’t hit anything.”

“I was eight.”

“So was I.”

“I had a head cold.”

She lets the laughter take her as they clear out the rest of the targets. “I’ve missed it.”

“I know. You’ve been caressing my bow with your eyes.”

“You sound absolutely scandalized,” Elissa says. She lets him lead her back into the keep. She’ll need more than a warm up to get back into proper form, but with the corruption in her blood it comes easier than she thinks it should. “My mother made me stop. Said it was unseemly for… Royalty.”

Nathaniel snorts.

“Quite. She wanted me able to defend myself, so all of my training went to weapons that could be more easily concealed.” Elissa details her mother’s training and then rambles onto what Zevran taught her during the Blight. Nathaniel asks about the enchantments on her blades and they discuss what should be added to their bows, though neither wants to commit to… permanent alteration. They take supper in the commander’s study, unwilling to open their conversation to the recruits at large.

It’s quiet.

\---

Pounding footsteps, running, echo into the commander’s office from the hall. Elissa doesn’t move. She’s wrapped up in a blanket around her cloak and Warden armor, laying nearly in the fireplace. Her eyes hurt from the bright, dryness, but she neither moves nor closes her eyes. She feels cold, clammy hands all over as the person reaches the door and pants on the other side of it.

She doesn’t know if Nathaniel enters immediately or if he stands outside collecting himself before kneeling next to her on the floor. “What happened?” When she doesn’t answer, he touches her shoulder and asks again, softly, “What happened?”

Pulling the blanket tighter under her chin is Elissa’s only response.

“What did you find in the silverite mines?”

As much as she can, with her armor, cloak and blanket, she pulls her knees up to her chest. She shivers, but doesn’t fight when he lifts her head into his lap. Nathaniel rests a hand on her shoulder and she can feel the heat of it through the layers.

“One of the cooks found the demon in the cellars,” he says, at a loss of how else to help. He has nothing to offer, except distractions. “Thought she’d died and gone to the Void. I paid her off, in good measure. I thought a demon warranted the same as an unfortunate bastard. Sent her off to buy a new home in Lothering.”

He’s a solid barricade against the memories and the cold, grasping-

“The city guard came to complain. They don’t like the rota. They don’t think anyone will attack during the winter.” Nathaniel holds his hand near her head, but not touching, letting her take the initiative like a nervous mabari. “Mistress Woolsey gave them a proper dressing down. And a rather graphic lecture about darkspawn. I can see now why she wasn’t Joined. Can’t risk losing _that_ asset.”

“Alistair wasn’t disposable,” Elissa says, even as she presses into his hand.

His thumb brushes against her temple. “Nor are any of us, Commander.”

“The thing. The darkspawn that made the others speak.” Elissa squeezes her dry, painful eyes shut. “It took my blood. Stole it like that witch tried. We’re a commodity, Nathaniel.”

“No.” A single word without explanation or justification. It’s more comforting than a hundred fires and a thousand blankets.

“Thank you.”

The fire burns lower, but the woodpile is only just out of reach. “Take me, when you go. With me at your back, you can focus on-”

“I need you at my command when I’m traveling.” Elissa shifts until she can meet his eyes. “I’ve had a sword at my back, a better one than yours. I know where I want you.”

The challenge sits between them, heavy in the air, but Nathaniel doesn’t take it. Instead he touches the scar on her forehead and throws his own. “You don’t hesitate to speak of Alistair to me.”

“And why should I? If not for his love, it would be my sword in the arch demon and my body in ashes.” She closes her eyes for a moment, fighting back Morrigan’s insidious whisperings of a ritual.

“You’re still here… But a man might think you were not.”

“A man might be stupid. Or blind if he can’t see me.” She reaches up and touches his cheek with a single finger.

Nathaniel leans forward, not enough to close the space, just enough to suggest… “You know what I meant.”

“Then speak plainly.”

The words are in his eyes, but make it no further. “Not tonight. Soon. But not when you’re unwell.”

Elissa nods and drops her hand. She closes her eyes and lets the fire die next to them.

\---

Elissa suspects that Nathaniel spends more time in the commander’s study now than he ever did when it belonged to his father. She doesn’t blame him. The Vigil is full of people _enthusiastic_ about the Wardens or proud of the name… And also Oghren and Anders, who simply have nowhere else to be and can’t be left unsupervised. The keep is nearly empty of Howe keepsakes; Nathaniel has a few items of sentimental value, but the rest were given to Deliah or passed off to distant relatives that were still part of the Fereldan peerage. So it’s not to dwell in the past or remember his family that Nathaniel sits on the other end of the chaise, reading.

The time passes in companionable silence, with only small breaks to complain about the snow or their companions. Elissa’s texts are strategy or military history, trying to catch up with her title, as much as she loathes it. Meanwhile, Nathaniel tends to read whatever is on hand.

“Do you write to Fergus often?” he asks.

“Some. Shallow letters. He’s having a bastard, but no word on if he’ll legitimize them or remarry,” Elissa says. The letter is on her desk, the reply unwritten. When her sister-in-law first died, she couldn’t imagine her brother loving another, but the child’s mother had stolen his heart.

“No chance of both?” Nathaniel glances at her from over his book.

“I don’t know. My speculation is that he wants to make Redcliffe sweat, whether or not he plans to pursue Anora. He didn’t care for my recounting of the Landsmeet, but given the circumstances, he can’t say anything.”

“It’s easier with Delilah marrying that shopkeeper. I don’t really understand it, but you can’t mistake her happiness for anything else.” Nathaniel waves his book. “She sent me this, too. No guise of ‘a loan to the Wardens.’”

“What is it, then? Another tale of knights in the Free Marches?”

“Ha, ha. A recounting of Soldier’s Peak. You were there, so I’m sure it will just infuriate you. It’s described how your bosom heaved in the throes of battle twice already.”

Elissa snorts. “Throw it in the fire.”

“It’s amusing for its inaccuracies.”

“Careful, or someone will write a book about you. Failed assassin of the Vigil.”

Nathaniel bumps their shoulders and goes back to his reading. He reads aloud a few of the more ridiculous passages, even knowing it’ll earn him a kick in the ankle. The space between them has become familiar, without them noticing.

The fire’s low and Elissa is thinking of retiring for the night when Nathaniel straightens in his seat. “The bards wrote a ditty, it seems.”

Elissa closes her book. “You’ll read it regardless of what I say. May as well get started.”

“Not all of it,” he says. He shifts his grip on the book, holding it high and tilting his head like a proper orator.

_“The stronghold lives on,_

_And the army’s reborn,_

_Compelled to forge on._

_What will we become?_

 

_Can you be forgiven_

_When the cold grave has come?_

 

_Or will you have won_

_Or will the battle rage on?_

 

_Oh, Grey Warden,_

_What have you done?”_

 

Elissa can’t listen any further. She drops her book and stands. They’re not his words, merely a recitation, but the words don’t matter. It’s the significance, the act of reading a song for her Elissa can’t abide. She’s halfway across the study before he takes her arm.

“Where are you going?”

She doesn’t look at him. “To bed. If that- I told you to speak plainly.”

Nathaniel coaxes her gaze to his with a warm hand on her cheek. “It’s clearer than we’ve had before; your running off proves that.”

“Wardens are not ones to be courted.”

Nathaniel leans in. The gap between them should be stifling, but instead the heat is scorching. “You’re a commander. Anyone with your power is to be courted. I’m giving you what you deserve.”

The tension in Elissa’s chest is twisted nearly to snapping. “Then do I have to take what I want?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, pulling him in by his shoulder and pressing their mouths together. The contact is searing and invigorates her as much as it makes her tremble. Their fight had turned into a dance and the relief isn’t that he kisses back with the same ardour. It’s that he _finally_ does so.

“Take it,” he says between breathless exchanges. “Everything I have for you.”

\---

Nathaniel stands at her shoulder, not touching. His expression is blank; the only lines on his face are wrinkles and remnants of emotions long-held. The leather straps holding his bow and quiver cross the front of his Warden armor. His eyes dart around the courtyard, measuring the reactions to Elissa’s orders.

For her part, Elissa stands tall with chin raised. She doesn’t need to shout for her voice to be heard, even over the sounds of her people strapping on armor and weapons. The stupid, winged helmet that she hates is under her arm and her bow is nowhere to be seen. She nods at the cheer that echoes after her final orders. She will defend the city of Amaranthine with her own hands; she trusts her soldiers and the fortune she spent in repairs to hold the Vigil.

She walks back to her office while the stablehands prepare her mare for the ride. Elissa presses her own back against the closed door before Nathaniel can. Their eyes meet as he plants his hands on either side of her shoulders. “Take me with you. Delilah lives in Amaranthine.”

Elissa shakes her head. “I know you sent her to Denerim; I paid for it. We don’t have time for this game.”

He leans in until his lips brush hers with every word. “Fine. I need to fight by your side.”

Her breath trembles in her chest, but Elissa’s voice is firm. “I need you here. You belong in the battlements.”

“You can’t sacrifice yourself for people that hate you.”

“If the people had faith in the Grey Wardens, the Orlesians wouldn’t have been turned away at the border and I wouldn’t have lost everything,” Elissa throws the words at him like knives and drops the blighted helmet to the floor.

He moves in until their foreheads touch and the air between them is stifling. Nathaniel brushes his thumb over the scars on her cheek and eyebrow. “You don’t have to carry this burden alone.”

Her eyes fall like a portcullis. “The last one to say that died for me.”

Nathaniel puts the words directly in her ear, more an emotion than a whisper. “I am not Alistair.” He presses his nose behind her ear and breathes deeply.

“If you were, you’d listen to me.” Elissa punctuates her words with a hard shove. She’s breathless and panting. She swallows and rubs her forehead. The Mother won’t wait for her to collect herself. When she looks back at Nathaniel, across the canyon between them, she can see the curse on his lips.

“Did he die following orders… Commander?”

Elissa flinches and fights back the tears. The question splashes against her face like acid. The drags the answer out of her heart like she was dragged out of Highever. A single, haunted word. “No.”

“Then you need to forgive yourself.”

Elissa chains the howl inside her chest with her tears. She needs all of her strength to fight back the darkspawn. She bares her teeth at Nathaniel like a wild animal. “You will stay here and fight as I’ve ordered, Warden.”

He dives towards her like a kingfisher, sharp and powerful. His mouth is scalding on hers, trying to leave an imprint, to take one with him. When he pulls back, it’s only to drown her in his stare and brush his gloved thumb against her bottom lip. “And you’ll come home to me at the end of this day. Of every day, love.”

“I will try.”

\---

Their bows hang, tilted at the same angle across their backs as they ride. Their mares are even-tempered and unafraid of darkspawn when Elissa scouts a nest. They wear Grey Warden armor, even though it means they’re mobbed at every village with thanks and gifts. Elissa accepts the food and sends the books to the Vigil, but rejects everything else. Even though it prompts whispers and jeers, they rent a single room from the inns they rest in.

Nathaniel sleeps with his arms and legs like a cage around Elissa and his nose pressed to the back of her neck, as if he can only breathe in the scent of her. He wakes from nightmares as much as he doesn’t, but without the song of the arch demon Elissa sleeps the nights through.

They’re curled up in the nicest bed in Redcliffe Village before Nathaniel thinks to ask where they’re going.

“There’s a lost temple to Andraste in the mountains. I left something there during the Blight.” Elissa takes another soft kiss from his lips before settling her head under his chin. She yawns. “Foolish of you not to ask.”

“Foolish to assume you would tell me in your time. Meeting with the Warden Commander from Orlais angered you plenty. I didn’t want it.” Nathaniel rubs the spot between her shoulders where she carries her stress. “I admit I’m surprised you’d retrieve anything for them.”

“It’s not for them,” Elissa says. She scrapes her teeth over his pectorals. Not hard, nor for any reason. Just because she can.

“Are you going to tell me, or will I have to coax every word out of you?” His arms tighten around her as he yawns.

“We’re going to recruit in the Marches,” Elissa says, which isn’t an answer.

Nathaniel pulls back so he can cup her face in his hands. He holds her still and kisses her breathless, pressing her into the freshly-stuffed mattress. His mouth doesn’t move enough when he speaks, but she can understand what he mumbles into her lips. “You gave up your command.”

“I’m stuck with the title, Hero of the Blight can be no less, of course, but my responsibilities stay in Ferelden.” She kisses him, his mouth warm and familiar. Elissa can feel the glee in the angle of his body against hers. It beats against the inside of his ribs, wanting to break through the stoic exterior, but she knows it’s there and has been coaxing it to life since they were children and she let him take credit for shooting the rabbit.

“So what are we retrieving? Surely it’s not-” Nathaniel cuts himself off. He looks into her eyes, swallows, and then finishes the thought anyway. “It wouldn’t be a ring or some kind of courtship item.”

The truth claws and catches at her chest. Elissa holds his cheek and presses their faces together. “Not as such, no.” Her voice drops to a whisper, as if the wind might find her words and steal them away to Weisshaupt. “We’ll never have our nobility back, but what healed Arl Eamon might… Cure the Taint. At least spare us the Calling. At least…” She can’t finish, can’t put words to the things she never wanted until they were taken away.

It takes him a moment, but Nathaniel realizes what she means with a pained gasp. His hand hovers between them, but then settles on her hip, holding her against him. He doesn’t kiss her as much as just press their mouths together so they share breaths and thoughts. “I don’t want anything other than the possibility. The _choice_.”

“It’s taking our lives back.”

When he can bring himself to stop kissing her, Nathaniel says, “They won’t let you go easily, my love. You can move mountains.”

“Shh, trust me. They know I’ll move mountains in their way if they fight me. As long as I make appearances and pretend to recruit, they’ll leave us alone. If we were to...” She takes ahold of his wrist, but doesn’t pull his hand around to her abdomen. She doesn’t need to. He knows. “We’d have to hide it.”

He snorts and digs his fingers into her hip. He kisses under her chin. “If there is one thing nobles are good at, it’s hiding inconvenient children.”

“I’m not afraid of - ah! - them. The ashes will cure us. If they don’t, we’ll find something that will.”

Nathaniel doesn’t ask what ashes she’s talking about. He’s far more concerned with the fire under his own skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I've gotten a piece of art of the two of them that you can see by following [this link](https://lonicera-caprifolium.tumblr.com/post/179228223908/tk-duverauns-warden-elissa-cousland-sharing-a).  
> There may be a sequel oneshot covering the events of Inquisition after I finish some trades :)
> 
> Also I love these two stoic, bitter idiots.
> 
> Edit: Hey! I'm back, a day late and a dollar short, but I did a trade for a lovely friend of mine to write their first, shall we say, intimate moment together. [You can find it here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16349492)


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